"You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side"
(Morrissey/Mark E. Nevin)

 

The music to this song was written by Mark Nevin during the winter of 1990 into 1991 when Morrissey intended to put together a rockabilly mini-album. With all the personnel changes happening at the time and the latter musical plans being shelved, the song was finally recorded during the "Your Arsenal" recording sessions, which took place in March 1992 at the Wool Hall in Bath, with producer Mick Ronson. Musicians on this recording were Boz Boorer (guitar), Alain Whyte (guitar), Gary Day (bass) and Spencer Cobrin (drums).

 

album version {3:38}
"Your Arsenal" album
"Very Best Of Morrissey" [remastered 2011]
"Satellite Of Live" single [remastered 2014]
"Your Arsenal" album, redesigned edition [remastered 2014]

 

MTV's 120 Minutes 10 August 1992 [tv]
This soundcheck for a Morrissey's recent appearance on Hangin' With MTV (on which he performed "You're The One For Me, Fatty" and "Certain People I Know") is circulated on bootleg video compilations of Morrissey television appearances. The audio has not yet made it on manufactured bootlegs but it is found in digital format on the internet.

 

This song has been done in concert a total of 136 times by Morrissey. Almost everyone who attended a show on the 1992 Your Arsenal tour had a chance to hear it, as it was played 52 times out of 56 concerts given that year. The song was the standard set opener on the 1999 half of the Oye Esteban tour, with a few more airings in its 2000 half, thus raking in a further 50 performances out of 75 concerts on the latter tour. It was last heard on the 2007-2008 Greatest Hits tour when it was played 34 times mostly between the start and mid-July 2007.

live London 20 December 1992, not Paris! {3:35}
"Beethoven Was Deaf" live album

 

No demos or studio outtakes of this song have leaked to the general public at this point in time.